N E W S L E T T E RIssue 1 • 2014

Associated and Collaborating Partners of RARHA in the Kick Off Meeting, EMCDDA, Cais do Sodré, Lisbon, 30/01/2014

What is RARHA?RARHA is a Joint Action (2014-2016)

that is funded under the EU Health Programme and by EU Member States to address some commonly identified priorities to reduce levels of alcohol re-lated harm in the EU.

RARHA’s three main work strands focus on: 1) generating more compara-ble data across EU Member States on

consumption patterns and on alcohol related harm; 2) un-derstanding the scientific basis for different guidelines for low risk drinking across Europe, to provide guidance to pol-icy makers; 3) the development of a tool-kit to disseminate good practices on early intervention services, school-based programmes and public awareness programmes.

The Joint Action RARHA is coordinated by the Ministry of Health in Portugal (General Directorate for Intervention on Addictive Behaviours and Dependencies - SICAD). 32 Associated Partners from 27 EU Member States as well as Iceland, Norway and Switzerland, as well as 28 Collaborat-ing Partners, such as the EMCDDA, WHO, Pompidou Group and OECD, among others, take part in the Joint Action.

The main goal of the Joint Action is to contribute to the health and well-being of the EU citizens and to reduce costs to health systems and the wider economy.

Patrícia Pissarra Project Leader

Visit our new website! www.rarha.eu

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Coordination Team of SICAD - EMCDDA at the RARHA Kick Off

Welcome to the RARHA Joint Ac-tion! This action just began in January, but it is already a clear demonstration of the high level of Member States commitment in the work of alcohol related harm.

I would like to start by highlighting the mission of SICAD, which focuses on the reduction of use of psychoac-tive substances, the prevention of ad-dictive behaviors and the decrease of dependencies in Portugal. One of our main responsibilities is to support the Government with the design and eval-uation of the national strategy, as well as on the implementation of policies on this area. In this regard, we must develop mechanisms for planning and coordinating the definition of policies and define the technical and norma-tive guidelines for the intervention. This is the reason why the exchange of good practices is essential, as well as the development of technical guid-ance and planning.

Alcohol plays a central role in many cultures. Today, drinking activities take many forms – rituals, social occa-sions and ceremonies, all involve hav-ing a drink. Alcohol is universally asso-ciated with celebration and drinking is, in most of our European cultures, an essential element of festivity.

These social and cultural aspects of drinking influence directly the de-

velopment of policies and legislation on alcohol issues. Indeed, although Europe is the world’s region with the highest alcohol consumption, it was only in October 2006, that the Europe-an Commission adopted the first EU Strategy to support Member States in reducing alcohol related harm, as there was increasing evidence that national alcohol related public health problems were becoming more wide-spread across the EU.

We need to take advantage of this momentum and work towards a healthy European new generation. This Joint Action is of utmost impor-tance as it will contribute to the im-plementation of the EU Strategy. We hope to make available an incentive for the Member States to take for-ward the work on common priorities, providing a platform for exchange of views and intensifying cooperation and coordination.

The harmonization of data across the EU on drinking habits and on al-cohol related harm is crucial to driving action in this area. It is also important that we understand the science un-derpinning different drinking guide-lines across Europe, and that we ex-change good practice on what works. RARHA’s activities will contribute to resolving the problems posed by alco-hol related harm in Europe. By acting together on such issues, we are more likely to improve the situation than by acting alone. RARHA outcomes will indicate that a broad consensus

is achievable on how to tackle alcohol related harm.

I take this opportunity to stress the support of the EU Committee on National Alcohol Policy and Action (CNAPA) members to the Joint Action, representing their governments, and also to the European Commission, re-iterating its engagement and support in helping all the Member States in-volved to further develop and improve the capacity to reduce alcohol related harm.

To conclude, I would like to call your attention for this major public health concern and to invite you all to con-tribute, in the context of this Joint Ac-tion, to the reduction of alcohol relat-ed harm.

Manuel CardosoDeputy General Director,

SICAD

DID YOU KNOW?• The average European drinks the equivalent

of 10.9 L of pure alcohol every year. That is almost double the world average of 6.2 L (2010 figures)

• 3 in every 40 Europeans have an alcohol use disorder.

• The harmful use of alcohol is a component cause of more than 200 disease and injury conditions in individuals, most notably alco-hol dependence, liver cirrhosis, cancers and injuries. In Europe, Alcohol is responsible for 12.8% of the burden of disease and injury, al-most double the burden in the Americas and the Western Pacific.

• The death rate in the EU for alcohol abuse in 2010 was between four and five times higher for men than for women.

• Alcohol costs societies some 2–3% of GDP, mostly from lost productivity.

• Among those aged 15–64 years living in the EU in 2004, 138 000 died of an alcohol relat-ed cause, of which 7700 (5.6%) were deaths in people other than the drinker.

EDITORIAL

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Alcohol and inequities: Guidance for addressing inequities in alcohol-related harmBelinda Loring, World Health Organization

Global status report on alcohol and health 2014World Health Organization

RARHA Kicks Off

The RARHA Joint Action Kicked Off on 31 January 2014,when it was for-mally presented to members of the Committee on National Alcohol Poli-cy and Action (CNAPA), national and international stakeholders and the press, at the EMCDDA headquarters in Lisbon.

It was a busy week for many RARHA partners, as the Kick Off meeting was preceded by a Management Group meeting attended by the coordina-tion team, work package leaders and co-leaders, who amongst other things approved the Consortium Agreement. The Steering Group, comprising all associated partners, also met on 30th January, to review and confirm the decisions made by the Management Group and to discuss the Joint Action’s implementation.

Alcohol Law Enforcement

The Third European Conference on Alcohol Law Enforcement: Easy taking promotes easy drinking, took place on 21 and 22 May 2014 in Tallinn, Estonia, and was organised by the National Institute for Health Develop-ment in Estonia (NIHD), the Dutch In-stitute for Alcohol Policy (STAP), both RARHA partners, and the European Network on Alcohol Law Enforce-ment.

The aim of the conference was to promote knowledge exchange to re-duce excessive youth drinking by al-cohol law enforcement. Conference participants focused on these the pol-icy making and policy enforcement.

Further information and presenta-tions can be found on STAP’s website: www.stap.nl

Work Package Meetings

The first meeting of RARHA WP4 (Monitoring) took place in Krakow on 16-17 May 2014. Twenty-six associated and collaborating partners participated in the meeting, to discuss and elaborate the thematic blocks of the draft question-naire that will be used to conduct the European Survey on Drinking Patterns and Alcohol Related Harm. Participants also discussed issues such as authorship guidelines, the pilot study, the sampling and translation of the questionnaire, interviews and databases.

In addition, RARHA WP6 partners (Good Practice Tool Kit) met in Tallinn on 20-21 May 2014, just before the Third European Conference on Alcohol Enforce-ment, to discuss their work-plan and the draft questionnaire for collecting good practices.

UPDATES

Paulo Macedo (Health Minister), Manuel Cardoso (RARHA Coodinator), João Goulão (General-Director of SICAD),

Wolfgang Gotz (EMCDDA Director) at the Kick Off Meeting in Cais do Sodré, Lisbon - 31/01

NEW PUBLICATIONS

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PARTNERS’ CORNER

“Slovenians are amongst the highest consumers of alcohol in the EU. The decision to take part in this Joint Action was simple: we want to address this, to see what other countries are doing in this field and to take the opportunity to perhaps transfer good practices from other countries. We need more and better comparable data to understand the strengths of other countries. We also want to understand why there are such different ideas across Europe on harmful levels of drinking, and to learn more on how best to communicate guidelines. Finally, the Joint Action provides us with an opportunity to network with other experts in the field from across Europe, which is always very important.

This is the first Joint Action on Alcohol, and we are very happy that the EC supported it, since it is a political issue. We are in turn happy to support the Joint Action.”

Sandra Rados-Krnel

National Expert on Public Health NIJZ,

Slovenia (WP6 Lead)

The National Institute of Public Health (NIJZ), Slovenia, collects and analyses data relating to alcohol consumption in Slovenia, and also designs and implements health promotion and alcohol prevention pro-grammes across Slovenia.

COMMISSION’S CONTRIBUTION

INTERVIEW WITH PHILIPPE ROUX

“Over the last seven years, the level of alcohol related harm has been per-sisting in Europe at unacceptably high levels leading to serious negative im-pacts on health, society and economy.

The Joint Action is an important initiative to contribute to the health and wellbeing of the EU citizens [...].The Com-mission invested in it because of the need to develop a set of complementary tools to support both the development of evidence and Member State policies [...]. Better access to comparable data on alcohol consumption and harm would help Member States to put the national situation into per-spective and consequently, would be essential for the Com-

mission to monitor progress across the EU [...]. While there is an abundance of initiatives to prevent alcohol related harm, there is lack of solid evidence of their effectiveness. Combin-ing examples of successful approaches would contribute to wider implementation across Member States, with benefits for individuals and the society.

Altogether, the tools developed in the Joint Action will help in the planning of public health policies that in the longer term contribute to reducing alcohol related harm, the risk of chronic diseases and the burden for health systems.”

Read the full interview online

Philippe Roux is Head of Unit for ‘Health Determinants’ at DG Health and Consumers.

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PARTNERS’ CORNER

“Applying common methodologies to obtain comparable data is important to monitor progress in reducing alcohol related harm at national and EU level, and to benchmark developments against wider trends… There is no doubt that the analysis of the already existing guidelines will provide better insight, helping policy makers take evidence-based decisions and widening common ground in communication on alcohol related harm. We hope to build consensus on the use of low risk drinking guidelines by facilitating the exchange of good practices among MS public health bodies.”

“One of the PARPA’s duties is to monitor the size and model of alcohol consump-tion in the Polish society. This kind of knowledge is necessary to provide efficient alcohol policy and raise public awareness of the risks connected with alcohol. In previous years, PARPA has conducted population surveys on drinking and alco-hol-related problems but we had no possibility to compare the outcomes of our research with the results of similar surveys carried out in other countries. Partici-pation in the RARHA Joint Action gives us this possibility.

We expect to develop and implement standardized methodology for monitoring drinking patterns and alcohol related harm in the countries participating in the project. Comparison of the survey outcomes obtained in the participating coun-tries (based on the same methodology) will be a significant contribution to the scientific knowledge about the differences in drinking patterns. Moreover, the project may provide comparative monitoring of alcohol epidemiology across Eu-rope. This data will have a great influence on developing alcohol policy in Poland and the EC.”

Emanuele Scafato

Director, Population’s Health and Health Determinants Unit

(CNESPS) ISS, Italy(WP3 lead and WP4, 5 and 6)

Krzysztof Brzózka Director PARPA,

Poland (WP4 Lead)

The Istituto Superiore di Sanità (ISS) is the leading scientific body of the Ministry of Health and the National Health System in Italy. Under the National Centre for Epidemiology, Surveillance & Health Promo-tion (CNESPS) of the ISS, the Population Health and Health Determi-nants Unit (PHU) is engaged in the formal monitoring of consumption in the population at risk, brief intervention strategies, prevention strategies and training of health professional. The Unit is a WHO Col-laborating Centre for Research and Health promotion on Alcohol and alcohol-related problems .

The State Agency for the Prevention of Alcohol-Related Problems (PARPA) was established to build the foundations of the state healthcare policy concerning the improvement of alcohol-related harm prevention, treatment, and public education in Poland. Among other things, the Agency coordinates with state and local government representatives and offers professional help to many institutions and associations engaged in the implementation of the National Program for the Prevention and Solving of Alcohol-Related Problems.

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Eurocare calls for a new EU alcohol strategy

BY ANNA GALLINAT Europeans are addressing the continent’s alcohol issue

but more should be done to get involved and more can be done. That is the impression I get when speaking to Mari-ann Skar, Secretary General of Eurocare (European Alcohol Policy Alliance) and partner in RARHA. Talking about the Joint Action she says: “More cooperation and knowledge exchange between Member States and other stakeholders in regards to alcohol will lead to a better European approach on these issues.”

On 27th and 28th of November, the 6th European Alco-hol Policy Conference will be held in Brussels. Eurocare is the main organiser. The conference aims to bring togeth-er a broad representation of stakeholders concerned with alcohol-related harm (policy and decision makers, scien-tists, and alcohol and health experts). The objective is to strengthen networks, build capacity and stimulate action to prevent and reduce alcohol-related problems at all levels. Ms. Skar, explains that “there is strong need for a new EU Alcohol Strategy. Both RARHA as well as the European Al-cohol Policy Conference contribute to that goal.”

The conference will address the following topics: EU Alcohol Strategy, price and taxation, marketing, harm to others, labelling, RARHA and more. The Joint Action will be presented on the second day of the conference. Before the official start, Eurocare will host a satellite event in the name of RARHA (Wednesday, 26th November), where Member States representatives and RARHA partners will gather and be informed about the project. According to Ms. Skar, “It will be held under the premise of a ‘status report’: inform-ing about the project, present on what has been done and achieved so far and describe the way forward.” A detailed programme will be available soon.

“In times, when EU Member States differ so greatly on alcohol policies, e.g. regulation, taxation or standardization, it is all the more important to advocate for a new shared EU Strategy on alco-hol.” Ms. Skar says. According to Eurocare, the EC can and should take on the following issues in a common Strategy: regulation of advertisements (e.g. on social me-dia), increase minimum tax on al-coholic beverages, labelling (health and nutrition information) and har-monise drink driving regulations, the definition of a “standard drink”, and the minimum age of 18.

Eurocare is involved in RARHA in Work Packages 5 and 6 as well as in dissemination. They are, for example, responsi-ble for developing and carrying out a consumer survey. Ms. Skar explains: “RARHA is a new meeting point for Member States to talk about alcohol-related harm and alcohol pol-icy. There are many good practices across Europe, so it is already great to share them. We also hope that the collab-oration will increase talks on alcohol legislation and policy implementation.”

INTERVIEW

For more information on the 6th European Alcohol Policy Conference, the RARHA satellite

event and other upcoming events visit

www.eurocare.org or email info@eurocare.org

Mariann SkarSecretary General of

Eurocare

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UPCOMING EVENTS

Three important events on alcohol policy will be held back to back in Brussels on 26th, 27th and 28th of No-vember 2014. These events will bring together repre-sentatives from three different sectors - decision makers, researchers and non-governmental organizations - to exchange information and discuss recent developments in alcohol related issues in Europe.

v The Alcohol Policy Network 4th Symposium, in the morning of the 26th of November (9:00 to 12:30)

v The Joint Action on Reducing Alcohol Related Harm (RARHA) Satellite Event, in the afternoon of the 26th of November (14:00 to 18:00)

v The 6th European Alcohol Policy Conference, organized by Eurocare, on the 27th and 28th No-vember.

The events will take place in the Norway House, Rue Ar-chimede 17 and the main topics covered will be:

j Debating on the EU Alcohol Strategy: priorities, targets, etc.

j Price and taxation; j Marketing; j Harm to others; j Alcoholic beverage labelling; j Joint Action RARHA; j Case studies to strengthen national alcohol policy; j -New research findings.

Norway House, seat of the Eurocare secretariat and location for many of the upcoming events.

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KEY MESSAGES

v Europe has the highest shares of drinkers and the highest levels of alcohol consump-tion and alcohol related harm in the world.

v Reducing alcohol related harm requires ac-tion across all government sectors and so-ciety.

v Wide participation in RARHA reflects the importance accorded by European countries to a solid knowledge base for public health policies to reduce alcohol related harm.

v The information and tools developed in RARHA will serve the planning of public health policies on alcohol in the future.

v Joint Action RARHA builds a bridge from the EU alcohol strategy of 2006 to – hopefully – the launch of a renewed strategy by the new Commission.

v EU has a crucial need for comparative data and research to develop effective actions to reduce harmful use of alcohol.

v People have the right to obtain relevant, understandable and reliable information on the risks and consequences related to al-cohol consumption and to be empowered to avoid and reduce risks.

v Information and education activities to reduce harm from alcohol are best used as components in the framework of broader public health policies based on measures with the best track record of effectiveness.

v Partners from different Member States con-tribute with 54% of the RARHA budget, exceeding the minimum required by the EU health Programme, with which the Joint Ac-tion is co-financed.

RARHA is coordinated by: Newsletters are produced by:

For a full list of list of partners visit www.rarha.eu

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